Aya sat with her chin resting on her gloved hands, folded daintily across the lower railing as she gazed out at the clear night skies. Her feet dangled inappropriately, revealing her snowy white bloomers to the world below - too far below to see more than a darker speck of the airship against a dark sky.

“Mh,” said Mariel. She sat further back, leaning against the inner wall of the upper deck cabins, just outside the captain’s quarters. His daughter, Miss Aya M. Scarlett, invited her up with a secret note passed down through the ship’s crew, and snuck out here to meet her. Mariel could lose her job, if they were caught; up here, she could lose her life, and when the captain said their mechanic fell overboard in a tragic accident, there would be no reason to disbelieve him. If Mariel were going to die for love, she hoped someone else would at least also hang for it.

“No, really,” insisted Aya. She tugged on the fraying hem of Mariel’s trouser leg. “Scooch up and sit with me, Mariel. You aren’t romantic at all.” Aya gestured imperiously to the empty spot beside her.

Mariel obeyed. She wiggled up net to Aya, but didn’t go so far as to let her feet hang over the edge of the deck. It wasn’t that she was afraid of heights - this was the wrong business for that - but she didn’t like to tempt fate and she wished Miss Scarlett would take the same precautions. But Aya had grown up on dirigibles, and she felt about them the same way another girl might feel about her grandmother’s street where she used to feed the ducks.

“You mentioned,” said Mariel. She glanced out at the moon; full, heavy, and low in the sky, just above the horizon of pagodas and unfamiliar mountains.

Aya huffed.

“Is this one of those things?” asked Mariel, “where you say one thing but mean another? It’s like you speak some other language that I can’t understand.”

“I do speak some other language that you can’t understand,” said Aya, rather crossly, “but right now I am speaking in English, and so are you.” Her lilting accent and coquettish pout didn’t quite cover her annoyance and Mariel touched the lace edge of her dress apologetically, fleetingly, and Aya softened, at least a little bit.

“You talk about the moon, or flowers, or architecture and they’re all right but you get short with me when I say so.” Mariel looked back out at the moon, as if she could discern there some secret meaning.

Aya looked slantways at Mariel, pursing her lips. She looked like Snow White, under the full moon - alabaster skin and raven hair and rose red lips, and she looked like she knew it. Aya knew also that Mariel was no poet, just a mechanic in the air and a cardsharp on earth, although sometimes she fixed things while grounded and counted cards while floating, just to keep things interesting.

“Well, the moon is particularly beautiful tonight,” she repeated, speaking slowly as if she were talking to a child or a foreigner or an idiot, “and those were lovely plum blossoms, but Mariel, it’s not about the moon, or about the flowers, you’re right,” Aya took a deep breath. “I want you to see them, because they’re pretty and because they make me happy, and I want you to be happy.” She huffed again, when Mariel’s eyes widened with surprise, “you Americans, you always need everything spelled out for you. I love you, Mariel, even if you are completely thick.”

Under any other circumstances, Mariel might have been offended, but she smiled and slipped her hand into Aya’s, “I saw the loveliest little bird…”